The Funeral.com Journal

Resources to help you create tributes as unique as the people (and pets) you love. Learn how engraving, photos, colors, and symbols add meaning; discover scattering rituals and at-home memorial ideas. We focus on the details that matter—because small choices can carry a lifetime of comfort.

How to Explain Suicide to Children: Age-Appropriate Scripts and What to Avoid - Funeral.com, Inc.

How to Explain Suicide to Children: Age-Appropriate Scripts and What to Avoid

If you are reading this, you may be carrying two heavy things at once: your own grief, and the responsibility of telling a child something you wish they never had...

Grandparent Loss: Often a First Encounter With Mortality—and Why It Matters - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grandparent Loss: Often a First Encounter With Mortality—and Why It Matters

For many families, a grandparent’s death is the first loss that feels close enough to rearrange the furniture of the mind. It is often the first time “someday” turns into...

Sibling Loss: Supporting the “Forgotten Mourners” (Adults and Children) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Sibling Loss: Supporting the “Forgotten Mourners” (Adults and Children)

When a sibling dies, families often move on instinct. Parents become the center of care. A spouse or partner may carry the loudest public grief. Practical decisions pile up fast,...

Cumulative Grief: Coping With Multiple Losses and Bereavement Overload - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cumulative Grief: Coping With Multiple Losses and Bereavement Overload

Sometimes grief doesn’t arrive as a single storm. It arrives as weather that never fully clears. One loss, then another. A death, then a medical decline, then a breakup, then...

Non-Finite Loss: Grieving a Child With Chronic Disability While Still Loving Your Life - Funeral.com, Inc.

Non-Finite Loss: Grieving a Child With Chronic Disability While Still Loving Your Life

There is a particular kind of grief that does not arrive as a single event. It arrives as a rhythm. It shows up at medical milestones, at school meetings, at...

Cortisol and Grief: Why Loss Can Make You Physically Sick (and What Helps) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cortisol and Grief: Why Loss Can Make You Physically Sick (and What Helps)

If you’ve ever said, “I feel like I’m coming down with something,” and meant grief, you are not alone. Loss can land in the body with a force that surprises...

Explaining Death to Autistic Children: Concrete Language, Predictability, and Emotional Safety - Funeral.com, Inc.

Explaining Death to Autistic Children: Concrete Language, Predictability, and Emotional Safety

If you are searching for how to explain death to an autistic child, it is usually because you are trying to do two hard things at once: you are grieving,...

Sensory Overload at Funerals: Practical Tips for Neurodivergent Guests and Families - Funeral.com, Inc.

Sensory Overload at Funerals: Practical Tips for Neurodivergent Guests and Families

Funerals are meant to be a place where love has room to show up. But for many people—especially autistic guests, people with ADHD, and other neurodivergent family members—a funeral can...

Autistic Burnout vs Grief Depression: How to Tell What’s Happening and When to Get Help - Funeral.com, Inc.

Autistic Burnout vs Grief Depression: How to Tell What’s Happening and When to Get Help

After a death, it can feel like your body and brain stop cooperating. You might be sleeping ten hours and still waking up tired. You might stop replying to texts....

Neurodivergent Grief: How Autism Can Shape Mourning, Support Needs, and Healing - Funeral.com, Inc.

Neurodivergent Grief: How Autism Can Shape Mourning, Support Needs, and Healing

Grief is already disorienting. It changes your sense of time, reshapes your routines, and makes ordinary tasks feel heavier than they should. When someone you love dies, many families instinctively...

What Food to Bring to a Grieving Family: Sympathy Meal Ideas That Travel Well - Funeral.com, Inc.

What Food to Bring to a Grieving Family: Sympathy Meal Ideas That Travel Well

When someone you care about is grieving, you can feel two truths at the same time: you want to help, and you do not want to intrude. That tension is...

Creating a Family Remembrance Day for Both Pets and People - Funeral.com, Inc.

Creating a Family Remembrance Day for Both Pets and People

A family remembrance day is one of the gentlest gifts you can give a grieving household: one consistent day on the calendar when you are allowed to remember out loud....

Helping Children Understand Active Dying: A Sibling Support Guide for Families - Funeral.com, Inc.

Helping Children Understand Active Dying: A Sibling Support Guide for Families

When someone you love is nearing the end of life, adults often try to protect children by keeping things quiet. But most kids notice the changed routines, the whispers in...

Neonatal Hospice in the NICU: Comfort Care and Meaningful Memory-Making - Funeral.com, Inc.

Neonatal Hospice in the NICU: Comfort Care and Meaningful Memory-Making

Sometimes, the most loving parenting looks nothing like what you imagined during pregnancy. It looks like learning a new language of medicine in a quiet hospital room. It looks like...

Pediatric Palliative Care vs Adult Hospice: What’s Different and What Families Can Expect - Funeral.com, Inc.

Pediatric Palliative Care vs Adult Hospice: What’s Different and What Families Can Expect

Families rarely arrive at this topic in a calm, spacious moment. More often, it begins in the hallway after a difficult appointment, in the car on the way home, or...

What to Text a Grieving Parent: Comforting Messages (and What Not to Say) - Funeral.com, Inc.

What to Text a Grieving Parent: Comforting Messages (and What Not to Say)

Texting a parent who has lost a child can feel impossible because nothing you say can make it okay. But silence can hurt too. Most bereaved parents aren’t looking for...